Google + users pressing +1 over 2.5 billion times every day Source Jul-11

ABOUT Living statistics – Many of us who have been following social media since the early 90s are very sensitive to today’s exponential growth in usage of the sharing web. Inspired by other cool real time counters, Social Media Industry Head, Laurel Papworth, my own Rise & Rise of Social Media presentations and various ‘cool’ videos (you know the ones) I decided to put together this little Flash app (which is in constant development) showing how active & dynamic the Social Web, Mobile Industry and Game Business is.

If you want to embed this on your page just click the button in the bottom left of the app to copy the code to your clipboard OR use the code/s in the boxes at the bottom of this post. Drag select it all then copy/paste into any site. Use this code as I will be regularly updating it with latest stats.

More about the Count – I quickly built and coded the app based on data culled from a range of social media sources & sites originally at the end of Sept 2009. The design has been finessed extra functionality has been added such as week, month & year lookahead/backs plus some dynamic data input. Also mobile and games tabs were added. (A combined Film, TV and advertising tab in development Apr 2010).

The social web has exploded in the last year and below are some of the social media statistics based on key data points that the ‘Gary’s Social Media Count’ is based on (many will be updated!).

Finally if you think of any more profound ‘dynamic’ stats to replace some of the above then, comment below!

UPDATE – The counter now has mobile and games added – soon to be included will be ‘heritage or traditional’ media (films shown in cinemas, TV shows being shown globally etc:). The statistical sources for the mobile & games counters are added below (even though they are in other posts).

Nowadays, almost everyone uses social networks for personal purposes to be in touch with family, build relationships or communicate to boss, but is it expedient to involve social media in education and child school life? Perhaps, it is not such a brilliant idea.

[…] Using Gary’s Social Media Counter, Ludovic cited how time is a vital element that web companies value. Among one of the several slogans illustrating this point was one reportedly coined by Mark Zuckerberg – “Done is Better than Perfect”. This really struck me as something which companies, not just web ones, need to do. It is not about presenting something imperfect before its time. It is about NOT over-analysing a situation in such a way that no decision or action is taken, or taken in time, such that it paralyses the outcome. […]

Gary, I am a 7th grade SS teacher in Ohio. We have been using your counter to talk about social media for a few years. Can not seem to find it anywhere online to use this year…links I have use do not show it. Anywhere I can find it? Thanks in advance.